Senior DevOps Engineer

What this role is about

This is an ownership role, not "keep the lights on" Cloud Operations. You own the client's infrastructure on Google Cloud from design to operations: you shape the architecture, automate everything that can be automated, and keep production running reliably, securely and cost-efficiently.

Inside the client team, your decisions have real impact. At CloudHero, you are part of a small, senior team where learning and sharing knowledge are part of the job.

Key responsibilities

• Infrastructure on GCP:design, build and operate the client's cloud infrastructure on Google Cloud, working side by side with their engineers, with an emphasis on automation, scalability and low maintenance.
• Technical delivery:lead delivery within the client team: assessments, migrations, modernization and ongoing operations.
• Kubernetes:build and manage Kubernetes platforms on GKE, including cluster lifecycle, autoscaling and application deployment with Helm.
• CI/CD:implement and maintain pipelines following GitOps principles (Argo CD / Flux, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Cloud Build).
• Infrastructure as Code:write and maintain infrastructure with Terraform; use Ansible or similar tools for configuration management.
• Observability:ensure strong monitoring, logging and alerting (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, Cloud Monitoring and Cloud Logging).
• Security:implement security best practices across infrastructure and pipelines: IAM, Workload Identity, image and pipeline scanning, Security Command Center, Organization Policy and Cloud Asset Inventory.
• Cost:identify cost-optimization opportunities and run reviews based on the Google Cloud Well-Architected Framework.
• Operations:troubleshoot and resolve critical production issues, then drive post-incident improvements.
• Advisory and mentoring: advise the client team on architecture, scaling and DevOps best practices; mentor other engineers and contribute to CloudHero's internal standards, templates and reusable modules.

Must-have requirements

• GCP is the main cloud. Equivalent hands-on AWS experience is accepted wherever noted below.
• 5+ years in DevOps, SRE or infrastructure roles, with a strong Linux background and hands-on production ownership.
• Cloud: proven experience designing and running production workloads on GCP (preferred) or AWS.
• Kubernetes: strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes in production (GKE preferred, EKS accepted) and with Helm.
• Terraform: solid experience, including writing and maintaining reusable modules.
• CI/CD: experience building pipelines, ideally with GitOps workflows.
• Networking: good understanding of VPC design, Shared VPC, DNS, load balancing and proxies such as NGINX or Envoy.
• Observability: practical experience with monitoring and logging stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki or similar).
• Security: working knowledge of cloud security best practices and native security services, preferably on GCP (on AWS: Security Hub, GuardDuty, Config).
• Ownership: able to own a project end to end and make sound technical decisions independently, while collaborating closely with the client's team.
• Native Romanian and fluent English, spoken and written.

Nice to have

• Google Cloud Professional certifications (Cloud Architect, Cloud DevOps Engineer, Cloud Security Engineer) or AWS equivalents (Solutions Architect Professional, DevOps Engineer Professional, Security Specialty).
• Hands-on cost optimization on GCP (Committed Use Discounts, Spot VMs, rightsizing).
• Exposure to GenAI workloads on Vertex AI (or Amazon Bedrock / SageMaker).
• Consulting or team augmentation experience, working inside a client's team.

Don't tick every box? If you are strong on the must-haves, apply anyway. The nice-to-haves are things you can grow into, not gates.

Ways of working

• Works closely with the client's engineers, day to day, as part of their team.
• Comfortable advising on architecture and explaining designs and trade-offs.
• Shares knowledge: mentors other engineers and contributes to CloudHero's standards.

What we offer

• Ownership of a client's Google Cloud infrastructure, from design to operations, with real impact on their team.
• A small, senior CloudHero team where learning and sharing knowledge are part of the job.
• Hybrid setup with an office in central Bucharest (Victoriei area).
• Competitive package, depending on experience and contract type (B2B or employment).
• Support from CloudHero, a cloud-native consulting and managed services company, and its community of DevOps and platform engineers.

Who is likely to be a strong match

• Engineers who can clearly explain infrastructure they personally designed, built and operated: a GKE or EKS platform, reusable Terraform modules, a CI/CD or GitOps setup, a monitoring and alerting stack.
• They can discuss concrete cloud services, production incidents and the trade-offs behind their decisions.

Who is probably not a fit

• Profiles that have only consumed infrastructure built by a dedicated DevOps or platform team, without building or improving any of it.
• Mainly support, monitoring or ticket-based operations roles without design ownership.
• Candidates without hands-on production cloud experience.